Paul Wellstone's Invasion Of Iraq

On October 3rd, 2002, Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone walked unto the Senate floor to give what would be one of the most momentous speeches of his career. A day prior, a resolution authorizing the President to invade Iraq, supported by the George W. Bush Administration, had been introduced. Wellstone, a progressive Democrat noted for his strong anti-war views, opposed the resolution. At the time, however, he was struggling to win reelection, and a vote against the popular resolution could push voters to support his opponent. Yet instead of joining the bipartisan chorus for war with Iraq and abandoning his beliefs, Wellstone chose to stand as a “monument of individual conscience” and raise his concerns about military intervention (Kennedy 223).
Wellstone had been a vigorous opponent of war since joining the Senate in 1991. He raised eyebrows and angered veterans’ groups in his first term by holding an anti-war press conference near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Berke), even earning an expletive from President George H.W. Bush after using a formal White House function to ask the President not to invade Iraq in 1991 (Lofy 68). However, voters’ tolerance for Wellstone’s anti-war stance changed in the

On October 2nd, the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution was introduced. Known informally as the “Iraq Resolution,” it allowed the President to “defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq” through invasion (United States Cong. 1501). The Resolution went wholly against Wellstone’s principles, as Coleman was attacking him on the national security issue, it would be politically beneficial for him to “abandon or subdue his conscience” and support it (Kennedy